


Satisfaction, Guaranteed

by luninosity



Series: ...and this compromise [8]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BDSM, Comfort, Consensual Kink, Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Fun With Mutant Powers, Homecoming, Kink Negotiation, Love, M/M, Mansion Fic, Marriage Proposal, Porn with Feelings, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:29:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1403092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arrival at the mansion, Erik’s careless words, comfort, comprehension, commitment. Or: the one in which Erik experiments with abilities in bed, Charles has very many orgasms, and someone gives someone else a ring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Satisfaction, Guaranteed

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: lots of emotions, explicit sex, all the kink…um, BDSM, restraints, Erik playing with electric fields and Charles, discussion of possible future kinks to be explored including shower sex, bondage, watersports?
> 
> Disclaimers: characters belong to Marvel, not me; title and opening lines from Green Day’s “Macy’s Day Parade.”
> 
> Three or four to go, in this series? We shall see. :-)

  
_give me something that I need_   
_satisfaction guaranteed_   
_’cause I’m thinking ’bout a brand new hope_   
_the one I’ve never known_   
_and where it goes_   
_and I’m thinking ’bout the only road_   
_the one I’ve never known_   
_and where it goes_   
_I’m thinking ’bout a brand new hope_   
_the one I’ve never known_   
_’cause now I know_   
_it’s all that I’ve wanted_

  
The sunlight’s sharp and unkind, overhead, slicing too clearly through the brittle sky; Charles gets out of the car and waves a hand at the looming structure before them, squinting through the glare. “Well…this is it.”  
  
Sean whistles. Alex remains stoic, as he has for so long now. Hank takes off his glasses and rubs them on his shirt.  
  
Erik’s expression is neutral, faintly sardonic, when he says, “Honestly, Charles, how did you ever survive growing up in such hardship.”  
  
Erik uses sarcasm the way that cacti use defensive spines: an evolution of sharpness to protect any inner vulnerability. Erik’s likely not even thinking about the words. Charles knows this. He knows.  
  
But Erik knows something too, secrets that Charles has never told another living soul. And the flippant words slip between his ribs, a slender knife’s-blade, and lodge there, crippling each breath.  
  
He says nothing because it’s hard to breathe with a knife in one’s ribs, and simply steps forward, fishing out long-unused keys. Opens the door, beckons them all in, ignores the faint hint of surprise at his lack of response, ignores Raven’s sudden sparking anger on his behalf, ignores all the long-dead ghosts that flit across his vision when he puts that first foot inside those doors.  
  
He gives them the quick tour—kitchen, library, common room, bedrooms—then suggests they go sort out said bedrooms while he takes care of the organizational end of the move. The children thunder away to squabble over living arrangements; Charles, calmly, shores up his shields against the clamor, and then heads off to the study.  
  
He’s arranged for the basics already, the utilities, water, electricity, cable, all of that. But the house is dark and dusty and un-lived-in, and there are tasks that need to be done, windows to be uncovered, new furniture and linens and curtains, sheets and towels for everyone, definitely towels, and toilet paper, and everything else that comes with a horde of new occupants…  
  
The study’s dim and gloomy, all the papers emptied out of the desk, the drapes over the window stiff with time. The lamp’s burnt out, when he tries to turn it on; he sighs, and wrestles the drapes into submission, ending up covered in dust but with the end of the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in for company.  
  
It helps, a bit. Not a lot, but a bit.  
  
Eventually he realizes the light’s fading and pauses to order pizza delivery—thank god they’ve got the phones connected, at least—because they have absolutely no food in the house and he’ll have to make a grocery run tomorrow, but at the moment he’s just too tired.  
  
He doesn’t know where Erik’s gone. He doesn’t try to find out.  
  
He’s got a vicious headache, and he finds aspirin in his bag, which is sitting beside the desk in long-suffering-companion silence, and he takes two, and then goes back to calculating how much of the necessary remodel he can pay for with his current inheritance, and how he might make up the difference.  
  
The light dwindles from gold to amethyst to indigo, outside.  
  
After a while Erik turns up, soundlessly arriving in the doorway. “You haven’t chosen a room.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter.” He spins the pen through his fingers, equally soundless. “They’ll all require renovation regardless.”  
  
Erik’s eyebrows pull together in a frown. “Charles, you—”  
  
“I assume you have. Which one?”  
  
“I…the one at the end, with the window…I can’t feel you. In my head. I had to go looking for you. Are you—”  
  
“That’s probably the best one,” Charles says, “no one ever really used it much, and you’ll like the visibility from there.” And then, as annoyed thumps echo off the front door, the deliveryman audibly growing impatient, “Oh, pizza—damn, the doorbell doesn’t work either, does it, he’s getting fed up with—coming!” and he slips past Erik and runs down the stairs and barely catches the man and hands over money and a gentle smoothing-over of mental irritation in exchange for dinner.  
  
Erik lets him go, likely out of startlement, but Charles can feel those eyes on his back the entire time.  
  
After dinner, by unspoken consent, the children wander out to the cavernous family room. The television set’s a few years old, but it works; they flip it on and start bickering amiably about various programs, idle chatter that lets them move on, and talk about nothing, and heal.  
  
The term _family room_ ’s a joke, of course. Nothing like a family’s ever lived in this house.  
  
The healing’s real, though, if ragged around the edges. Angel, leaving. Darwin, gone—temporarily, Charles has assured them all of that much, he can feel that presence if he stretches, incorporeal but marvelously adaptable and busy working out how to get past the shock and into some sort of physical body again. That loss won’t last; but the impact was genuine for them all at the moment, for all the moments before Charles and Erik had arrived, back from Russia, back where they should’ve been when Shaw came. When Shaw hurt them. This family.  
  
Charles smiles a little, watching them all watch the tv set, idly surfing channels, alive. Feels that twisting blade in his chest again, and starts picking up abandoned pizza boxes to take out to the trash.  
  
Erik materializes out of nowhere to stop him, one hand on his wrist; Charles, helplessly clutching grease-spotted cardboard, says, “I can do something about the shopping tomorrow, I know we can’t live on take-out alone,” and Erik says, “Charles, talk to me.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“You’re angry with me. Is it because—”  
  
“I’m not angry with you.” He’s not.  
  
“Then—this is worse. You feel—you’re not happy.” Erik rubs a thumb over the inside of his captive wrist, tracing veins and pulse-points under smooth skin. “You haven’t spoken to me since we arrived.”  
  
“Of course I have, I’ve—”  
  
“No, you haven’t. You’ve given everyone a tour and you’ve locked yourself in the study and you made an excuse about pizza when I came to find you. Charles, please.”  
  
“It wasn’t an excuse,” Charles says, because he’s afraid he’s going to cry and his head aches even worse despite the aspirin and Erik’s gazing at him with concern. “We needed the pizza.”  
  
“I love you,” Erik says. “Talk to me.”  
  
“It _is_ a hardship,” Charles tells him, “being back.”  
  
And Erik goes very still, looking at him. Not the usual poised readiness of a predator, but the astonished motionlessness of comprehension. _I didn’t—_  
  
“Don’t,” Charles says. “I have a headache.”  
  
“I’m sorry. I—Charles, I—” Erik looks at the pizza boxes. Takes them out of his unresisting hand, sets them on the counter. “I only meant. This house. I never knew real people lived this way. Headache?”  
  
“Real people don’t. I’ve already taken aspirin, not much else to be done.”  
  
“I didn’t see you take anything.”  
  
“Earlier. While I was calculating new-furniture expenses. Come to think of it, they’ve probably worn off.”  
  
“Where is it?”  
  
“My bag?”  
  
“Still in the study?”  
  
“Yes, why—where are we going? Erik…” But he lets Erik tug him up the stairs anyway. Going along is easier than resisting, at least for now.  
  
“Sit down,” Erik says, and pushes him into the chair, and scours the uncomplaining bag for the bottle. “Here.”  
  
He swallows them dry, winces, feels more than sees Erik wince too, guilt like gathering clouds. Sighs. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”  
  
“You’re not, “Erik retorts, “and it’s my fault. Do you need anything else out of this bag? I mean at the moment.”  
  
“What? No. Or—” He makes a hasty grab for the latest pop-culture biography of Charles Darwin, the one he’s reading for scholarly hilarity. “—just this for now. Why?”  
  
“Because,” Erik says, and gets up and goes away with Charles’s bag and comes back without it while Charles is still blinking after him.  
  
“Where did you—”  
  
“Our room.”  
  
Charles ends up blinking again.  
  
“I’m apologizing,” Erik says. “I knew better. I wasn’t thinking, and I hurt you, and this is me apologizing, Charles.”  
  
“ _Erik_ ,” Charles says, and then stands up, out of the chair and into Erik’s hesitantly offered arms, and lets himself be held.  
  
Erik’s hand smoothes his hair, gently, comfortingly; Charles tucks his face into Erik’s neck and just breathes, for a while. The night and shadows settle comfortably around them.  
  
 _Thank you._  
  
 _You said this was painful for you._  
  
 _The aspirin helped. Thank you for that too._  
  
 _I love you._  
  
 _I know you do. And I love you. I just…_  
  
“I know.” Erik kisses him, one quick firm press of lips to forehead. _I know. Do you want to be alone, or…?_  
  
 _No._ “Actually, we probably ought to go back downstairs and make certain no one’s traumatized the television set…”  
  
“Can a television set be traumatized?” _If you’re feeling up to that._  
  
 _They could use the support, I’d think. After everything. What kind of leaders are we, if we can’t be there alongside them?_ “And…with this group…I’d imagine that’s a distinct possibility, unfortunately.”  
  
Erik’s answer is a complicated wordless swirl of light and dark, wistfulness and pride, a sense of having been proven right—the world is cruel and Charles needs to know that, needs to understand—and a deep shadowy quiver of regret that Charles might ever have to understand, and the instant-later comprehension: Charles, better than anyone, already does.  
  
What Erik says is, “By all means, then, let’s go rescue your antique television set,” and Charles nods, and Erik holds his hand, unabashed and unashamed, the whole way down the stairs.  
  
“It’s the end of _The Wizard of Oz_ ,” Raven says, looking up as they appear in the doorway, “but they’re showing it again in five minutes. Come do the Wicked Witch voice for me.”  
  
Erik raises eyebrows. Charles sighs, admits, “I used to scare her with it, when we were kids,” and Erik, surprised, grins. “I imagine you were positively terrifying.”  
  
“Thank you,” Charles tells him, and Erik’s expression turns even more surprised. Might be comical, except that a surprised Erik is liable to have unexpected hair-trigger reflexes, physical and emotional. “Charles—for what?”  
  
“For not assuming I can’t be terrifying. Oh—”  
  
 _Oh_ because the phone’s ringing. They both stare out into the hall for a second—the house is old enough that there’s not a phone jack in every room—and then Charles says, “I should—” and shifts weight vaguely that direction. “Go on. There’s a spare chair over there. They’ve left it for you. Very patriarchal.”  
  
Erik now looks horrified. Charles laughs, squeezes his hand, and goes to answer the ring.  
  
It’s not terrifically important, just a minor checking-in from various agencies, noting the dusting-off of the long-unused Xavier property and activity on the accounts. Charles nods even though they can’t see, pacifies them all, and leans shoulders against old-fashioned once-expensive wood paneling for a moment after hanging up.  
  
Activity on the accounts. The Xavier name. Places to which he’s sworn he’d never return, money he’d never wanted to touch. But maybe, maybe, he can do some good with it. Maybe he can use it to help instead of harm, no glittering cutthroat diamond-sharp business deals, no vicious jealous hands, no bruises and broken bones this time…  
  
He’s already not been enough. Not there when his newfound family needed him. In Russia. With Erik. Hurting Emma Frost, pulling plans and schemes and details out of her mind. Begging Erik to fuck him, after, needing to feel real, needing to feel anchored, needing to feel like himself, back in his own body and aware of every nerve ending and sensation.  
  
Such hardship, Erik’d said, mockingly. Of course it’s mocking; Charles has everything, if one were to look at his past objectively. Money. Food. Shelter. A mother who couldn’t give a damn what he did, such an open invitation to do anything if he’d cared to; an absent father, brains blown out across the back wall of one room never opened since. A stepfather and stepbrother who, yes, hit him when they could, but half the time they couldn’t, and it was all practice anyway, all good for him, for his training.  
  
He only realizes he’s been biting his lip when he tastes blood.  
  
Nothing he’s gone through compares to the smallest fraction of what Erik’s gone through. He knows.  
  
It hurts and it shouldn’t, he’s not that boy anymore, he’s become himself since then and without the family money at his back, and he believes in what they’re doing here and now. He’s got a bloody PhD and a man who says the words _I love you_ and even believes they’re true when spoken, and he’s having the most spectacular sex of his life _and_ getting to explore genetic mutations on the most intimate level possible; what more could he ask for, really?  
  
“What the fuck,” he says aloud, a little shakily because his eyes’re burning, and no. Just—no.  
  
He swipes a hand across his eyes and stands up straight—echoes of his mother’s voice, before all the alcohol and pills, ring down his spine—and walks back toward the family room, step by step.  
  
He pauses in the doorway, a single second snatched out of time in which no one notices him, all the gazes miraculously in sync as they gaze at the opening of the beautiful old fantasy on the television screen, anticipation pure and simple and without care. He could turn, and walk away.  
  
But he doesn’t want to.  
  
The hurt’s burrowed in someplace deep and old and brittle in his bones, but it’s a private melancholy pain, and he doesn’t want to be anywhere else. He wants to be at Erik’s side. To feel, just for a moment, as if he doesn’t have to be lonely.  
  
It’s not as though he’s not already forgiven the words; they don’t matter, only Erik being Erik, blunt and sarcastic and suspicious in the face of the unexpected. And he loves Erik, with every scarred and hollowed-out piece of his heart. He knows that’s true.  
  
There’re no unoccupied seats, now that Raven’s taken advantage of his absence to stretch out along the sofa; so, without giving himself a chance to think better of it, he pads over to Erik’s chair and stops and folds himself down on the floor, on his knees, shoulder bumping gently against Erik’s leg on the way.  
  
No one else seems to think twice about this, unnoticing or uncaring or just not getting the underlying layers, though Moira, trained to notice small details, does look at them a bit oddly; the flow of surrounding conversation continues idly into the opening credits of the movie.  
  
 _Charles?_ Erik sounds surprised, not displeased, but concerned. _Is this—are you—_  
  
 _Papaya,_ Charles says, and nudges his shoulder into Erik’s leg again, meaningfully. _Pineapple. Whatever I said for green_. _I’m all right_.  
  
“Phone call?” Erik asks, aloud. _Still tropical, then? Only if you’re sure. I’m not asking you for this._  
  
 _I know you’re not. I feel like trying_. “My—well, the estate—solicitors. There have been some unusual expenses of late, you must admit. And we’re back here, and getting everything turned on, the electricity and the water and all…They’re only checking in. It’s their job.”  
  
“I assume you reassured them.” _And you could use some reassurance, yourself_. Erik sits up more, shifting position, and a large hand finds his shoulder and settles there, protectively. _I am sorry for what I said, earlier. That was cruel._  
  
 _You’ve already apologized. Nothing else to forgive._ “I believe I managed to comfort them in their distress, yes. Shouldn’t be a problem.”  
  
“Shh,” Raven says, annoyed, “if you two are going to talk, do it silently, some of us are trying to watch a movie,” and Erik snaps his head over and glares, and Charles glances away, at the antique carpet and all its memories.  
  
“I’m not afraid of you,” Raven grumbles, “you can kill me with a paper-clip, sure, but you’re still an ass who hurt my brother, so I’m unimpressed,” and Erik doesn’t answer, which is surprising enough that Charles looks up.  
  
Erik’s expression remains neutral, not giving anything away. But his presence in their thoughts feels stricken. _Charles, I’m so sorry._  
  
 _Don’t—_  
  
 _You’re still hurt. I can—I can feel that, when you talk to me. Like a bruise. Under all your words. I’m sorry._  
  
 _I…didn’t realize you heard me that well. It’s all right. I heal fairly rapidly. Always have._ Miss Gulch cackles at Dorothy, in the background.  
  
 _It’s not all right. And don’t do that._  
  
 _Don’t do what?_  
  
 _Don’t pull away from me. Don’t pretend you’re not in pain when you are. I need to know. No—I want to know. Because I love you._  
  
 _Oh—_  
  
 _Charles, look at me._ That one has the force of a command; Charles swallows, and obeys. _I love you. I don’t want to hurt you. But I’m not—not good at this, yet._  
  
 _I think you’re doing very well actually—_  
  
 _I mean loving someone. I’m out of practice. I’m going to say the wrong thing or not react the way you’d like sometimes and I want you to tell me when that happens, because I don’t want you to be hurt because of me. And I am sorry. And I AM going to apologize to you, whenever I need to, understand?_  
  
 _You said once,_ Charles answers, thinking hard, _that we could be difficult and get things wrong together…_  
  
Erik doesn’t answer in words. But a spark of hope leaps up between them through the remorse, newborn but strong.  
  
 _I love you_ , Charles says, and leans into that long leg with most of his weight. _Better_.  
  
Gratitude like sunrise, rose and gold; Erik squeezes his shoulder, briefly. _You—you know you don’t have to stay down there. I can move. You can have the chair_. Even more deeply: _please know I mean this/please feel comfortable/please let me help._  
  
 _You are helping,_ Charles tells him, _and I am comfortable. All the tropical fruit. Like this._  
  
He spends a second being amazed at that. It’s true. It’s entirely true; and he smiles, a little, to himself, wonderingly.  
  
 _Charles, you—_ Erik sounds awed. _Please look like that always_.  
  
And Charles laughs, and feels himself turning pink, and then hides the embarrassment by turning his head and kissing Erik’s knee, leaving his face tucked into the curve of the joint for a moment after.  
  
 _Shh_ , Erik says, _you’re all right, you can let me compliment you, I’ll make that one an order if you want, you have to listen and try to believe that I mean it when I do_ , and Charles continues to blush—though for a slightly different reason now—and nods.  
  
 _Good_. Erik runs the hand along his upper arm, proprietarily, and Charles settles into the touch, and finds calmness waiting.  
  
They don’t speak, for a while. The tornado hits, on the television screen; Dorothy gets carried away, adrift. When she opens the farmhouse door, the world’s in vibrant technicolor. Bursting with life.  
  
The children watch as if they’ve never seen the film before, enthralled; Charles, drifting too, enjoys the way his knees’re bent, the hardness of the floor and the plushness of the rug, old wood and expensive faded imported fabric. Loses himself in the line of Erik’s leg, the blissfully painful knowledge that he’s chosen to be here, not taken the chair, wanted this. There’s an odd tranquility in his soul, in the dissipating headache and the dusty space of memories and this newfound sense of rightness, far-flung and infinite and almost forlorn with love.  
  
He slips one hand around Erik’s calf, unobtrusively. Holds on. Erik breathes in, and the hand on his shoulder slips up to settle around the back of his neck, heavy and warm.  
  
The weight’s nice there. Grounding and liberating at the same time, as if there’s nothing else in the world except the two of them, an entire universe of intimate space.  
  
There’s a hint of arousal in all the sweetness, too, tingling promises of exultation. But it’s a diffuse kind of pleasure, dreamlike and unfocused, not sharp and demanding, at least not yet.  
  
He rests his head against Erik’s knee. Shuts his eyes. Lets the ocean tide come up and swallow him, liquid tranquility: this is where everything feels stable, and safe, and right. Where he belongs.  
  
Erik’s fingers wander casually over to his face, the arch of one eyebrow, his cheek. Charles turns his head far enough to press a kiss into the center of that palm; feels his own breath when he does, and keeps that position, Erik’s hand over his mouth, for a heartbeat longer.  
  
 _Charles_ , Erik murmurs, affectionately astonished, and shifts his leg, more force behind the contact now, as if they both need the support. Charles runs his hand over Erik’s calf, the outline of muscles, the shape of him. Breathes.  
  
 _Charles_ , Erik says again, this time sounding amused, _you’re projecting._  
  
 _…what?_  
  
 _Look around._  
  
 _What? Oh—_ No one’s watching the movie, anymore. They all have the same expression of slightly distracted bliss, as if caught by a heavenly swirl of powerful drugs. In the case of Sean, that’s possibly an accurate description; but Charles winces anyway, serenity splintering apart, and hastily attempts to shore up eroding shields.  
  
 _Oh, damn—I didn’t mean—I’ll see if I can’t get them to forget—I’m so sorry—_  
  
 _Don’t apologize. You’re lovely. But I think we should take this upstairs, don’t you?_  
  
 _Yes,_ Charles answers, meaning it. In so many ways.  
  
Erik stands first. Offers a hand. Charles takes it, and lets Erik pull him to his feet, slightly too fast with the aid of an elemental tug at a watch, a zip. They crash together, breathless, laughing. No one else notices as they run upstairs.

He’d told Erik earlier that this room, the room they escape to, has never been used much; it’d been a guest bedroom when they’d still had guests, and covered over after that, dusted by maids until Charles stopped giving a damn and gave them all glowing references elsewhere. It’s not full of memories. No ghosts.  
  
Erik does pause in the doorway; Charles turns, inquisitive.  
  
“If you want—” Erik stops. “You don’t. Want to find your old room.”  
  
“No.” This room doesn’t feel like Erik’s just yet, but it’s beginning to. A map unfolded on the dresser. That suitcase on a chair. Charles’s own bag set tidily on the floor beside said chair. It’s a flexible bag; the sides cave in, no longer entirely full, as it looks up at them. _Their_ room, then.  
  
He looks up at Erik. Smiles. “Sorry about any dust on the sheets.”  
  
“I’ve slept on worse.” Erik comes over. Puts a hand on his shoulder. “If you’d like I can wash them for you.”  
  
Charles cocks an eyebrow at him. “You do laundry.”  
  
“I can also cook and darn socks. I can see which one of us is likely to be the domestic one, Charles.” Under that there’s an odd unspoken current, darting silverfish impressions, not hidden but confused themselves: muted quizzical pleasure at the idea, self-scorn at the pleasure, a ruby-spark of resentment— _maids cooks money of course he never had to_ —and then regret and apology, Erik remembering the price of growing up here with said money.  
  
There’s another more surprising layer to the thought; Charles has to grin. “I’m not sure laundering my sweaters actually counts as being a good Dominant, you understand.” _Though I’d not complain_. Also true on more than one level, that.  
  
Erik, hearing both, grins back. “Taking care of you, Charles. I’d say preserving your ridiculous sweaters falls under that category.” _I like…taking care of you. Knowing I can._  
  
 _Knowing I’ll let you,_ Charles says, teasing but they both stop, hearing the words, and look at each other, in the dust-mote lamplight of this room that’s becoming theirs.  
  
“Yes,” Erik answers finally. _You—what you showed me, once—your memories—and that you would let me do this, let me have this—you could stop me and say no and you never do. You want me here._  
  
“Yes,” Charles returns, a deliberate echo; and then steps over to Erik and puts both hands on his face and kisses him, intentional and incontrovertible and infused with all his own affirmation. _Yes_.  
  
And then he walks over to the bed. Kicks off his shoes, his jacket—leaves the waistcoat on; Erik’s thinking in a vaguely stunned manner about how beautifully it defines his curves—flips down the not-too-bad-after-all cream-colored sheets, and kneels, perfectly poised, in the center.  
  
“Charles,” Erik says. _Charles_.  
  
“Yours,” Charles says, wholehearted and sincere, and waits.  
  
Erik comes over noiselessly as ever, all dangerous grace. Stops in front of him, and lifts a hand. Charles stays still, unafraid.  
  
Erik breathes out. One fingertip brushes Charles’s cheek, lifts his chin, traces over his lips. “Downstairs…that was…I’m not asking you for that. But if you want to…if you offer…”  
  
“I did. I do. Sometimes. Not all the time.” _Right now yes. Please._  
  
“Then of course.” Erik slips the fingers beneath his chin, holds him in place. They’re not too far off from the same height, normally—a few inches, yes, and Charles shamelessly enjoys that feeling, himself being the shorter one, surrounded and enveloped by all the affection and sleek muscles—but at the moment the height difference’s noticeable given respective positions.  
  
Charles breathes in. Out. The room’s quiet and unruffled and watchful. Erik’s hand is warm.  
  
“Mine,” Erik murmurs. “Because you choose to be. Because you give yourself to me.” His thoughts glow, intent as a bonfire; Erik’s good at focus. Deep down, though, there’s that little leaping flame of pure boyish thrilled excitement: _he wants this, he wants me, he chose ME—!_ and Charles ends up smiling again.  
  
“Hmm,” Erik says. “Not quite there, yet? Where you were, downstairs?”  
  
“…this house,” Charles says, after a second. There’d been a family portrait along the stairs. _We’ll get there. Give me a second._  
  
“We,” Erik agrees. Slips the hand to the nape of his neck. The heat spreads all through his body as long fingers curl, not enough to threaten breathing but a presence nonetheless. _You like this? My hand on you, on your throat?_  
  
 _Yes, sir._ It’s working, that delicious secret shudder of command, of being commanded, of submission _to_ command. Reverberating rightness in his bones. He closes both eyes. Feels it all, everyplace. Erik’s. Someplace he belongs.  
  
 _Yes_. Erik’s voice, mental and physical, is certain and wry. “But, speaking of downstairs…unless you want them all to hear everything, Charles…”  
  
 _I can shield. Better than the usual, I mean. If you’re going to distract me._  
  
“I’m going to try my best.” Erik leans down, not moving the wonderful hand, and kisses him soundly. _And I am very determined. Go on, or am I distracting you now?_  
  
 _Leave the hand, if you please._ And Erik laughs. And Charles, though he doesn’t laugh aloud, lets his own weary amusement and arousal bleed over, sweetly floating; and then steps into his head for a moment, not losing sight of Erik’s touch as an anchor.  
  
He’s always pictured his mental shields _as_ shields, brightly colored and weighty. It’s a silly misconception, really, a false alignment of reality and metaphor; but as a child he’d grown up on Howard Pyle and English romance and scientific fiction and costumed heroes, and he’d thought, shields and protection, and imagined his own.  
  
These days he knows better, of course. But now they’re old familiar friends, and they come at a gentle nudge, falling into place, overlapping and layering so tightly that no cracks form between. They’re all different shapes and sizes; the oldest wooden shapes suggest Arthurian impulses, and he regards them fondly. The newer layers are made of other material. Titanium, concrete, diamond; one on the end seems to be made out of laboratory-goggle plastic.  
  
In a combat situation they’d move, and deflect, and spin away oncoming arrows and attacks. For what’s to come, though, he’s aiming to keep projections and emotion in, not out; the shapes understand, and remain quiescent.  
  
He slips outside the walls for a moment. Walks around, critically inspecting; taps at surfaces, nods, ducks back in. It’s his head; he can do that sort of thing.  
  
He could, and has, done this faster, when necessary. Now, however, he’s unhurried: the thoroughness is only another form of foreplay, preparing, making himself ready for what’s to unfold. For Erik.  
  
And that thought lends a spice of anticipation to all the layers, one that he suspects will sink in and become part of him in unexpected ways. The idea thrills him, unexpectedly erotic: he’s Erik’s even here.  
  
Satisfied, he opens his eyes. Finds Erik’s smile waiting.  
  
“So,” Erik says, eyes holding his. “Strip. For me.”  
  
It’s a bit awkward while kneeling on an antique mattress; Charles manages, though, kicking trousers and socks across the room, tossing his shirt in the general direction of a chair and failing. Erik doesn’t mock him, or laugh. Only waits. Charles flushes, suddenly shy in a way he’s not felt for years, and can’t quite meet river-water eyes.  
  
“Beautiful,” Erik judges, and steps closer to him. “Do you know one reason I enjoy this room?”  
  
Charles does smile, because he does, yes. “The bed. Sir.”  
  
“The bed,” Erik concurs, and the wrought-iron bedposts quiver eagerly. “I want you here. In this bed. Tied down, while I fuck you, so that you can feel it. That is what you want, isn’t it, Charles.” _That is what you want? To—to feel—real, you were thinking, anchored—will that be enough?_  
  
“Yes,” Charles says. _I think so. Touch me? Please?_  
  
“I love you saying please.” Erik taps that finger over his lips again. Charles’s cock jumps, already rock-hard at the hint. Erik glances at him, moves the hand, toys too lightly with a nipple. Charles whimpers.  
  
“Reminders,” Erik breathes, into the midnight hush of the room, the honeyed lamplight, the anticipation. “You, and me, and this…you want this. You want to be mine. You’re saying yes.”  
  
 _I’m saying yes._  
  
“And you _will_ be mine. Everything I choose to do with you…however I choose to take you, to please you, to please myself…” Skillful fingers pinch his nipple, twist it, tease delicate flesh to full hardness and bite down. Charles moans. His cock, pressed hard against his stomach, twitches and smears want across his skin.  
  
“If I want to leave you tied to this bed,” Erik muses, “and fuck you until you scream, until I’m dripping out of you, until you’re begging me to stop…I will. And you could stop me, Charles, but you won’t.” _You will if you’re in pain. Orders, Charles. Tell me if you are._  
  
 _I promise._ “Please.”  
  
Their eyes catch and hold, moment drawn out impossibly fine; Erik flicks a thumbnail over that captive nipple, Charles gasps, Erik smiles, and Charles nods. When Erik’s hands guide him down onto the bed, he goes easily, body loosening and languid. So soon, he thinks, startled; but even that thought’s a bit distant, blurring into the anticipation of desire prolonged and ultimately fulfilled.  
  
Iron coils around his wrists smoothly. Around his ankles. He welcomes the touch; is welcomed by it. He thinks maybe Erik’s warming the metal a fraction; it feels safe and protective and secure.  
  
With all four limbs comprehensively pinned down, he can’t move; he tests the bonds regardless, not because he’s trying to get away, only to feel the tug against his skin. Erik smiles even more. “I do remember how much you like restraints. Are we getting back there, yet?”  
  
“Almost— _oh_ —” The metal around his wrists tightens, restricting motion even further; Charles hears himself moan, and wonders whether Erik can feel the thunder of his heart through the iron.  
  
“Better,” Erik says, with some satisfaction. And then simply sits down beside him, looking but not touching, and Charles protests and tries to twist toward him and can’t.  
  
“Not better. Behave, Charles.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“Are you arguing?”

“No.” He rolls his head across the pillow, needing to move, restless and yearning. Erik reaches over. Runs a hand along his outstretched arms, down his chest, over his stomach. The touch feels like summer lightning, dry and electric.  
  
Again, and again, maddening gentle caresses that go nowhere near his aching cock, heavy and hot and so full it almost feels unreal, the need so all-encompassing that it can’t be contained in one place.  
  
“Don’t,” Erik says, “not yet,” and then fingers skim over that straining tip, smearing ready wetness over too-sensitive skin, and Charles sobs and swears out loud and in their heads and doesn’t use his safeword, because this is everything he’s ever needed.  
  
Erik’s fingers lift away, and he whimpers; but then they brush his lips, and Charles opens his mouth automatically, adrift in pleasurable pain. He can taste his own desire on Erik’s fingertips, and the order is quite plain despite remaining unspoken, and he licks and sucks and swirls his tongue around those fingers unrestrainedly, devout.  
  
“I have something for you.” Erik touches his wrist; the iron there curls upward, lifting, rippling, though not releasing. Charles thinks the question, wordless and lifted to the very edge of flight. Erik gazes at him, eyes solemn, elated, hopeful. “If you were wondering where I was—this afternoon—” Hesitation, brief and unwelcome as unripe apples: _you weren’t you didn’t ask you didn’t—_  
  
 _I wanted to know,_ Charles whispers. _I didn’t want to want to know._ Then, he didn't. Words’re difficult, but possible; the apprehension in Erik’s thoughts pulls him back to earth. _Please tell me._  
  
 _I want to._ Erik lifts his other hand; Charles cranes his neck to see, as the object floats up from Erik’s pocket and into his field of vision.  
  
It’s a ring.  
  
It’s a slim gold spinning ring, cradled in the serenity of the light and the support of Erik’s power, electromagnetic fields humming through it beneath the aureate surface. Different metals, lots of them, woven together and forming the core. A tapestry. Art.  
  
“I thought,” Erik starts, not awkward because Erik never reveals awkwardness, but tripping over unaccustomed emotions in a second language, eyes watching Charles’s, “you would like gold. On the outside. Traditional.”  
  
For one of the very few times in his life, Charles can think of utterly no words.  
  
“The inside—” Erik makes a gesture; the ring floats closer, balancing above Charles’s hand. Where it’s meant to go. “The shirt you were wearing when we met…it had metal in the buttons…you may need new buttons…a piece of metal from Stark’s toolbox, from that time…one of my paper-clips…the gold isn’t from my—I procured it from Hank. He had some in the lab. He seemed far too nervous when I requested it.” Under all the explanatory words, thoughts collide and crash: _what if he doesn’t like it hasn’t said we did talk about and I wanted to but if he doesn’t…_  
  
“Erik,” Charles breathes. _Erik. Yes, yes, YES—!_  
  
 _You do want to—you know we can never, not legally—but you want to, you’re saying—_  
  
 _I told you yes once before, I’m telling you yes again, yes, please, let me wear it for you—_  
  
“You do enjoy the idea of wearing things for me,” Erik murmurs, and the ring slides down over Charles’s finger and settles there, tightening like it knows it’s found its place. They both gasp, feeling that. Secure.  
  
 _Always._ The metal heats, twists, presses against his skin. _You’ll feel this even when I’m not with you, even when—_ A small self-deprecating huff. _Even when I’m an ass._  
  
 _I love you even when you’re an ass,_ Charles says. _Sir._  
  
 _You do. And I love you, Charles. Never doubt that._ Erik’s fingertips stroke the air just above the ring; the metal ripples, magnetic fields in play, and a tiny electric shock sparks through Charles’s skin. The snap of it makes him cry out, heady and painful and lovely all at once; his cock jumps in reply. The world wavers, as the dreaminess of sensation beckons.  
  
Erik raises eyebrows. “You seem to enjoy that one. Should I experiment with…other applications, Charles?” _All right?_  
  
 _Yes—what—_ He can’t think clearly, trembling on the verge of submersion, waters closing over his head, peaceful and blue and feeling so _good_. _Erik—_  
  
“Magnetic fields, generating electricity…” Erik looks smug. There’s relief behind the expression, and sheer arousal at the idea of using his powers, exploring his powers, with Charles’s surrendered body. _I could make you a matching ring. Here._ Large hand around Charles’s cock, stroking, rubbing _. I could make you feel it here—_  
  
And fingertips move to skim over that intimate muscle, dry and curious and promising; Charles imagines it, imagines Erik’s metal inside him, the way they’ve done before, but _more_ , Erik playing with magnetic fields, currents, the low-level crackle across his finger searing into his prostate—  
  
His hips snap upward, into Erik’s hand. His whole body shakes with it: not quite an orgasm, not yet, but his cock spurts a desperate spattering of drops across his stomach, and all his muscles coil and then release.  
  
Erik’s eyes go wide, delighted steel horizons. _All right, then—now, then, if you’d like—I love you, Charles, don’t let me hurt you—_  
  
 _No, never,_ Charles breathes, serene, _you won’t,_ and lies still, loving the sensation of the bonds, the ring, Erik’s ring around his finger.  
  
Erik’s still mostly dressed, shoeless but neat and black-clad in turtleneck and slacks. Somehow this makes the scene better, deeper, more real: Charles is Erik’s, body and soul, spread naked and vulnerable for him; Erik’s in command.  
  
They both know Charles could end the scene a word, or without even that.  
  
Erik uses oil, carefulness, implacable kindness. The iron restraints pull spread legs up and further apart, so far that joints almost protest, though Charles doesn’t. Erik’s fingers twist and thrust and move inside his body, slipping in and out with obscene wet sounds. Charles, floating someplace beyond embarrassment or shyness, hears it all, feels it all, as a paradox: distant and dreamlike, these things happening to his body, responses with no volition; and yet the sensations course through him head to toe when Erik pinches his nipple, massages fingers over his prostate, draws shuddering moans from his mouth. He’s drowning in rapture; it’s everything he’s ever needed, to be loved, to be claimed so inarguably, to never feel lonely any more.  
  
“I think you’re ready,” Erik purrs, and the gleaming length of metal—Erik’d saved it, promised to fuck him with it, again and again—appears from nowhere and pushes between spread thighs. Charles groans as it sinks in; Erik’s made it wider, thicker, and the stretch hurts but feels right, and he never wants it to end.  
  
Erik guides the metal cock all the way inside him, pulls back—Charles sobs—then thrusts back in, harder and flawlessly aimed. Charles screams. Erik does it again, and again, until Charles is thrashing in the bonds and then ceasing, struggles of need giving way to quiet intermittent tremors, mind blank. The dildo’s pressing hard into that spot inside him, too hard, and it hurts but he needs it right there, needs more, and tries to rock his hips, to rub himself against the blunt-object pressure.  
  
Erik leans down, kisses him. Erik’s lips are warm and kindly; Charles whimpers when they lifts away. His face feels wet.  
  
“Shh,” Erik says, “you’re all right, be still, be good, Charles,” and so he tries. Erik’s hand settles on his hip, gentling, grounding. _All right. Now_.  
  
And something—shifts, some change in the metal, in the magnetic connections inside the toy inside him—and something else _sparks_ —  
  
Charles can’t scream. His mouth’s open, but the whole world’s voiceless, suspended, crystalline intensity, and he’s coming, can’t _not_ come, cock pulsing, entire body trying to convulse and go rigid and fly despite the bonds—  
  
Everything’s white-hot and silent. Eternal searing ecstasy. He’s coming apart, shattered into a million pieces, and the shattering goes on and on—  
  
A pause. A reprieve. A hand brushing hair, damp with sweat, from his face. He knows that hand. Erik.  
  
He manages a small weak breath of sound. Erik laughs, mostly out of relief. _Still all right?_  
  
Charles whimpers. It’s a yes, though unarticulated because words escape him. The sense is present, however, and gets across.  
  
“I want you,” Erik tells him, “like this. So good, Charles, so beautiful, taking everything, everything I can give you…” A sweep of clothing, a shift of position: Erik naked, kneeling over him. Charles moans, head lolling to the side, across pillows. Erik leans forward, steadies him with a hand. “I can feel you, you know, Charles. When I do this to you, my metal inside you…I feel it all.”  
  
Charles shudders, not processing. Later, he will—the words’re tucked away and intriguing, paths for further scientific study—but here and now he’s wholly instinct and singing nerves and need.  
  
Erik whispers, breath hot against his ear: “And I want _more_.”  
  
The world flares into incandescence. Charles’s sticky cock spills its last ragged efforts at the first second. His body’s spasming, tugging at the restraints, and that spot inside him, oh, that’s everywhere, fire racing along veins, in every heartbeat.  
  
A single breath, a break in the endless erotic torment; he can’t decide whether he needs it to stop now or to never stop, all his senses overloaded and singing and nothing in his head except Erik and the pleasure and the pain.  
  
Erik must be refining his control. The next wave hits more subtly, building, swelling. Uncontainable. Charles’s head slams into the pillows and his hips jerk under Erik’s weight and Erik does something more and every muscle goes taut, he can’t breathe, can’t think, and can’t move; his body’s tensing and shuddering and writhing on the bed. Muscles seize and let go, and oh, that _is_ letting go, involuntary surrender _everyplace_ , and he feels new wetness at his cock that’s exquisitely pleasurable but not orgasm, release of that too, even _that_ , no control left as Erik’s electricity pushes him past the limits. His mind can’t handle that, quivering under the golden-hued thought, and he teeters on the brink of passing out, the oceans around him suddenly too deep, overwhelming and blurry-edged.  
  
Erik stops, astonishment palpable though there’s no hint of distaste—stops everything, maybe even time, because the next thing Charles knows the dildo’s gone and Erik’s kissing him, soft and sweet and slow, a hesitant _Charles?_ twining through thoughts like ivy.  
  
Charles shivers. Clumsily opens his mouth. Lets Erik’s tongue tease him, coax him, skim over slack lips. _Charles?_  
  
 _Here…_  
  
 _Yes. So beautiful—so incredible, Charles, you—_ Still kissing him. More forcefully now. One large hand cradling his head. There’s a sense of awe, and proprietary pride, and above all else coruscating desire. _I would like to fuck you. Like this. If you’re not hurt._  
  
 _Like this…_ He’s too exhausted to push the thought at Erik, simply spreads it out, displayed, an open broken fan. _Like this, after I—I just—sir, Erik, you made me—_  
  
 _I know._ Erik rests a hand on his chest, over his sternum, a solid weight. _You should see yourself. Covered in it all, sweat and come and—even that—not as much as you seem to think, that last, and I don’t mind, I rather like seeing how far we’ve—so filthy and lovely, Charles, everything you’ve given me. I want all of you. MY submissive._  
  
That last, the mingled pride and want and affection and possessiveness and love, tips him back over the edge. He’s barely conscious, breathing the yes when Erik asks for it, feeling his body open up like a flower for the length of Erik’s cock. He’s wrung out, limp as waves rolling back from the crest, drifting like sea-foam on the tide.  
  
Erik thrusts in, out, in. No resistance at all; Charles’s inner walls are slick and loose and overstimulated, vainly fluttering around the penetration. Erik’s thoughts’re a haze of incredulous amazement at that. Erik’s done this; Charles _let_ him. Charles, lying under him, drunk on sensation and utterly open for the taking.  
  
The rhythmic thrusts feel nice, at first: far-off bliss. Erik pounds into him and Charles whimpers faintly and enjoys the heat and hardness of that lean body atop his. He’s no longer worried, no longer ashamed of anything: Erik’s said it’s all right, has liked him this way.  
  
Erik shifts angles. Rocks into him. Different. A small frisson of brighter sensation. He’s not sure he can get there again, not while he’s already pillowed in cotton-candy clouds, but the quiver runs through his bones.  
  
Erik notices. Does it again.  
  
Charles moans, body responding without his input.  
  
Erik fucks him harder, then. The restraints bite down on his wrists and ankles, and the constant thrust of Erik’s cock is so good, luminous slip-slide over that spot inside him, and he’s insensible with need now, more more more,. Erik flings a quivering tendril of power at his finger, at that brand-new adornment, tightening, vibrating, glowing; the orgasm that comes isn’t a piercing arrow of lightning this time but a great billowing wave, diffuse and golden and languorous, sweeping him away. He’s dimly aware of Erik groaning his name, slamming forward one last time, coming—Charles can feel the flood inside him, hot wet jets over that too-sensitive bundle of nerves, and then he’s subsumed in the rapture.  
  
He awakens naked and clean and tucked into slightly musty-smelling blankets and Erik’s embrace. The lights’re still on, both in the room and the hallway outside; he wonders how long it’s been, and isn’t sure he cares. Erik’s arms feel good, and that’s everything he needs for that first moment.  
  
That’s of course not everything he needs—all those mundane and less mundane worries, the renovations, groceries, the CIA, Shaw—linger. But for that second, he has Erik and he knows Erik has him. It’s enough. They can do anything, together.  
  
He opens his eyes. Erik’s scrutinizing his face, but the tension eases when their gazes meet. _Charles?_  
  
 _I feel…brilliant, actually._ He does. Weightless, unfettered, happy. _I love you. Did you…clean us up? And change the sheets? Around me?_  
  
“I have many unrevealed skills,” Erik says dryly. “I spent a week undercover at a Swiss hotel, once. Do you need anything? Water?” _I love you. You are beautiful, and thank you, and I love you._  
  
“Water might be nice, yes…” _Why the thank you? If anything that’s the other way round._ Erik isn’t embarrassed at all about anything they’ve just done. About anything he’s coaxed out of Charles’s shaking body. So, then: Charles isn’t either. No shame between them. Himself, and his Dominant.  
  
They could even try that particular last release again. In the shower. Not in bed. Erik’s hand on his cock while he lets go, that most intimate fundamental bodily command…himself on his knees for Erik when _Erik_ needs to, the splash of private golden claiming liquid heat…  
  
Erik blinks. Charles shoves those newfound fantasies away, hastily.  
  
“Maybe,” Erik says, while Charles has a momentary panic attack and reaffirms that, yes, his shields’ve held and the children’re all preoccupied in various ways. Thank God. Especially with some of his current mental images.  
  
Erik’s continued talking; Charles refocuses promptly. “Not any time soon, Charles, that’s…rather a new one for me. But perhaps. At least the last one.” With a flicker of interested territoriality at the thought: idea to turn over for later. “Have you actually ever—”  
  
 _No!_ “Er. New one for me as well. You inspire me, sir.”  
  
“Clearly.” Erik picks up a glass from the aged wood of the bedside table, supports him with an arm, holds it for him when Charles’s hand proves shaky in the aftermath. “Thank you for this.”  
  
Erik’s looking at the ring. Taking Charles’s hand, after returning the helpful water to the table, and toying lightly with the band, turning it over skin. _Thank you for you._  
  
“Me,” Charles says, and does flush, then, not precisely shy or self-deprecating or denying the thought but someplace in between all of that plus wanting it to be true. “I argue with you and tell you you’re wrong and scare you half to death with Cerebro and I hate this house and my memories and I have scars, Erik, you think I’m beautiful—and you said you’d make me a ring, and you did, you _did_ , and I said yes, and I’m not crying, it’s just reaction, honestly, you can’t make a person have orgasms like that and not expect—emotions—”  
  
“I love you,” Erik says, and puts the arms back around him. The bed embraces them both, sturdy. _I know. You’re all right, Charles, we’re all right, we’re—good. I made you a ring and you said yes._  
  
 _Are we…married? Or…_ He sends the second query as a picture, instead: not a collar but a ring, a symbol, Dominant to submissive. He’s been to those clubs. Discreet, underground clubs, not out in the open, naturally. But full of intimate sexual sensual secrets, except he’s seen all those fantasies. _Is it this? I’d wear a collar for you in here, of course, if you asked—but the ring when we’re in public, then? Symbolic?_  
  
“You realize you’ve just said of course, about a collar?” Erik taps a finger on the tip of Charles’s nose, playful: that side of him almost no one’s ever privileged to see. Charles, caught between vague annoyance at the nose-tapping and pleasure at the trust, glares. Erik grins, showing all those teeth. “I’ll make one for you. And you’ll like wearing it.” _In answer to your original question…both, I think. If you want that. If you want to._  
  
The emotions swirling around that answer are thorny and myriad, knotted shades of loss and joy. Parents who should’ve been there to fall in love with Charles too. Hazy memories of temple ceremonies and reverent words. Skittering anger at a world that won’t recognize their union, because Erik wouldn’t be Erik without some rage entwined with elation. Blue eyes and the desire to see them smile always, to give them a better world, to be a family for Charles—that one’s interlaced with bittersweet determination. Erik knows what it’s like to feel loved by and to lose a family. Charles, Erik’s thinking, grew up never knowing that kind of love, betrayed by the very people who should’ve held him most dear. As long as Erik’s here, that will never happen again.  
  
Erik _wants_ to be here. It’s a strength of commitment that’s even startled at itself, but it swells like a symphony, a crescendo, as Erik thinks about it. Being here. With Charles. It’ll be a challenge and an argument and a compromise and an endless chess match and an eternity of new ways in which they’ll test each other and stretch further and fit together. Erik’s unafraid of challenges. Likes to meet them head-on.  
  
Erik’s also thinking, very very quietly, at a level Charles probably isn’t meant to hear, that Charles might say no. That Charles might not want _him_ , as vengeful and monstrous as he is; that Charles might not want anyone at all, that way, might not believe in love-promises made when they’re made to him.  
  
Charles says, calmly, Erik’s fingertips still loosely caressing his face, “Well, if you’d like we can try to find a happy medium, we probably shouldn’t invite a rabbi to the house but we can write our own vows and find some sort of glass around here to destroy and I imagine you can construct a chuppah somewhere on the grounds and we’ll do it ourselves,” and shouts, in their heads, _I love you!_  
  
“I love you enough to do the laundry,” Erik says, “and attempt to teach you how to cook, and—” Charles leans in and kisses him. The ring kindles warmth around his finger. Erik thinks, wonderingly, _home_ , and Charles thinks back _yes_.


End file.
